Heisei Fights

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Dinosaur1993!
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Heisei Fights

Post by Dinosaur1993! »

The Heisei era is my favorite overall era of Godzilla and it was the era responsible for getting me into the series. I grew up with these movies and I have a lot of fondness for them. It has been a while since I've watched them and I decided to give them a rewatch over the weekend. I think the movies hold up relatively well and I'm glad I revisited them. The 1991 suit is my favorite look for Godzilla, Akira Ifukube’s scores for four of the films are some of his best work, and I love the new monsters they introduced. Overall a pretty solid era.

However, one element has not aged well at all. The fight scenes. The beam wars and awkward fight choreography, especially in the later films really bothered me. I don't mind beams, but, the monsters standing around spamming beams at one another get old pretty quickly. I would have preferred for there to have been a more even mix of hand to hand combat and beam firing. To be fair some of the battles found an even balance.

- The final battle in Biollante
- The first fight in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
- Godzilla vs Rodan
- The final battle in Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla 2
- Godzilla vs Destroyah

I know I'm not the first to bring this up.
Last edited by Dinosaur1993! on Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Terasawa
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Terasawa »

I think, more than anything, the major problems with the Heisei Series fights are how they're choreographed and shot as well as where they take place.

Compare the final battle in Godzilla vs. Megalon to the first battle with Mechagodzilla in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Both are set in a small forest and both sets probably took up just as much sound stage space as the other. But the Megalon battleground feels far more spacious than the one in GvMGII, almost solely thanks to the different constructions of the sets (the MGII battle takes place in a narrow sort of valley, whereas the Megalon fight has more open ground). YMMV of course but IMO the Megalon battle is also more exciting because there's much more movement. The monsters are just fighting on the same stretches of scenery but because they're almost perpetually moving (and because of the pace at which the sequence is cut), it feels like they cover a lot more ground. IMO that's preferable to the MGII battle, which rarely sees its monsters move, both in relation to each other and to the surrounding scenery. The 1993 battle feels totally static, even with the flashy animation and sometimes dynamic shots of the monsters.

Even the final battles in the last three Heisei Series films feel static, even though they took place on ridiculously large city sets. The problem here is that, no matter how big Kawakita's crew built those sets, they're still just one set each. And because the sets were only partially surrounded by a cyclorama background, the sets could only be photographed from certain angles. Couple that with the stationary models of landmark buildings and you have only limited coverage. The longer the battle (and all three are really long by the series' standards), the increased likelihood of repeatedly seeing the same buildings from the same angles. IMO the purpose of building huge city sets is defeated when it's obvious the monsters are fighting on the same several city blocks for 25 minutes.

Higuchi was able to work around this in the Heisei Gamera films (especially G1 and G2) in part thanks to the limited sound stage space available at Daiei. The benefit to the limited space was that Higuchi's crew weren't limited to depicting Tokyo on one complete set in one corner of a sound stage. They'd set up one area for some shots and then tear it down and redress the same set to create another part of the city.
Last edited by Terasawa on Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Kaltes-Herzeleid »

I think the first duel between Godzilla and King Ghidorah is the definitive (in a good way) Heisei Godzilla battle. Well handled mixture of beams and close quarters combat crossed with human action and was both exciting and tense. Ghidorah strangling Godzilla nearly to death is one of the more visceral moments in the series despite lack of blood and or gore.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Gigantis »

Agree with the assesment above! It's not too beam spammy, and there's just enough neat moves involved that it doesn't get stale with physical combat either. Biollante' final fight is a close second.

I think the bulky suits really hindered good fight scenes for the Heisei series.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by edgaguirus »

The suits for SG and Destroyah seemed to limit their arm movement, so they did a lot of beam spamming. More range of movement there would have been better.

The later Heisei fights were lacking that good mix of physical combat and beams, but vs Biollante and vs KG had it down. The second Biollante fight was a brutal and bloody one, and the first KG battle was a clash of strength and weapons. Seeing KG go from beams to trying to strangle Godzilla shows the kind of animal brutality of the Showa era.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Spuro »

I'm still not sure what Ghidorah was hoping to accomplish by strangling Godzilla, honestly. Dude survived being trapped in a volcano for several years, definitely with no oxygen. It's a dumb fight in general though.

The Biollante fights, Destoroyah fights, and Godzilla vs Rodan are the best executed Heisei fights IMO. Good mix of physical action in all of them.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Terasawa »

Kaiju-King42 wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:59 pm Destoroyah fights
Too much waddling and sparkiness. I'll take somewhat inexplicable strategies (Ghidorah trying to strangle Godzilla) with defined actions over physical combat that merely comes down to two bulky costumes bumping into each other.
Last edited by Terasawa on Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Spuro »

Terasawa wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:41 am
Kaiju-King42 wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:59 pm Destoroyah fights
Too much waddling and sparkiness. I'll take somewhat inexplicable strategies (Ghidorah trying to strangle Godzilla) with defined actions over physical combat that merely comes down to two bulky costumes bumping into each other.
There was only one bump battle the whole fight. The rest had Godzilla being strangled (again) and thrown, dragged across Tokyo bay, swarmed by smaller Destoroyahs and sliced into with Destoroyah’s horn, while Godzilla himself tore a hole into Destoroyah’s chest with his claws. Not to mention Junior’s fights and death.

I don’t you if you’re just misremembering the movie, but the fight is one of the most physical of the Heisei series, after the Rodan fight and both Biollante fights.

It’s really Spacegodzilla where the bump battles are at their peak.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by BlankAccount »

Battra larval and Godzilla fight got really good once they were underwater.

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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Terasawa »

Kaiju-King42 wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:49 am
Terasawa wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 7:41 am
Kaiju-King42 wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:59 pm Destoroyah fights
Too much waddling and sparkiness. I'll take somewhat inexplicable strategies (Ghidorah trying to strangle Godzilla) with defined actions over physical combat that merely comes down to two bulky costumes bumping into each other.
There was only one bump battle the whole fight. The rest had Godzilla being strangled (again) and thrown, dragged across Tokyo bay, swarmed by smaller Destoroyahs and sliced into with Destoroyah’s horn, while Godzilla himself tore a hole into Destoroyah’s chest with his claws. Not to mention Junior’s fights and death.

I don’t you if you’re just misremembering the movie, but the fight is one of the most physical of the Heisei series, after the Rodan fight and both Biollante fights.

It’s really Spacegodzilla where the bump battles are at their peak.
Of the things you mentioned, only Destoroyah dragging Godzilla into Tokyo Bay and the various business with Destoroyah's horn are appealing to me. Yes, Godzilla gets in close and does some physical damage to Destoroyah's chest, but I don't think those shots are all that great. Similarly, the "bump battle" may be short but it's an utterly embarrassing scene that's worse than anything in the Godzilla vs King Ghidorah fight. Who thought it was a good idea to photograph Destoroyah from this angle, waddling into battle?

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Godzilla is "swarmed" by one or maybe two Destoroyahs. Only one ever gets above Godzilla's knees. The rest of them never physically interact with Godzilla and are only digitally composited into the frame. It's an interesting change of pace for the battle but the execution falls flat and it doesn't make much sense. You questioned the logic of Ghidorah choking Godzilla so I have to ask, what was Destoroyah trying to accomplish by shrinking down and haphazardly "swarming" Godzilla? They don't pose much of a threat to him (except for perhaps draining some of his energy) but he disposes of them very easily. I believe Keith Aiken once said it was hastily thrown together by the crew when they learned that Gamera was to be swarmed by Legion in the upcoming G2. (Can anyone find that post? I think unfortunately it might have been at the old forum, thus lost to time.)

And again, physicality on its own doesn't necessarily make for a better battle sequence. I explained earlier in the thread why I don't like the final battles in the '93 - '95 movies, although admittedly each one has a few good moments. I'd much rather have an exciting shorter battle than one that drags on for twenty or more minutes.

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Living Corpse wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 10:51 am Battra larval and Godzilla fight got really good once they were underwater.
I like it too, except for the excessive bubbles that obscure the action. They didn't need to go to that extreme to sell us that it was really honestly legitimately happening underwater.
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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by Voyager »

I love it when Destoroyah coughs blood up after Godzilla... scratches at his chest. That suddenly sounds a lot less cool.
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Re: Heisei Fights

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VoyagerGoji wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:17 am I love it when Destoroyah coughs blood up after Godzilla... scratches at his chest. That suddenly sounds a lot less cool.
He also coughs up blood when Godzilla shoots his chest.

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Re: Heisei Fights

Post by GojiDog »

I actually like the Beam Wars aspect of the Heisei fights.

Each era of Godzilla seems to have its own distinct style. The 60s fights were more animalistic and physical. The 70s were more cartoonish and over the top with fantastic and impossible feats being performed. The Millennium films were kind of a mix of everything that had come before. And the Heisei era is defined by its beam wars, and I'm okay with that.

But what really worked for me was how the Heisei films were physically portrayed as massive behemoths and godlike in size and power. Godzilla was just a tower of power that slowly imposed his will everywhere he went and used his atomic blast for long range destruction.

The lack of movement from most of the Heisei monsters was compensated by their massive size and the amount of powers they had. Monsters like Mecha King Ghidorah, Spacegodzilla, and Destroyah could barely move, but they look so tough to beat and had so many cool powers, that its easy for me to overlook it.

For their size, I can say that in the Hesei films, I never lost the illusion of the massive size of the beasts. Off the top of my head, I can't recall one instance where I wasn't convinced of their weight and size. The Showa films lose that on a few occasions (not often, but movies like Godzilla Vs. Megalon fail to convey the massive size at all), but the Heisei films, the monsters really do feel massive...because the suits themselves are massive, and making that aspect of the monsters convincing is something I enjoy. And all the beam powers, while excessive, made it fun just to see what these monsters could unleash on each other.
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